Remember
by Yggdrasil'sRoots
Summary: Tauriel has mourned her fallen prince for over a century now. When Legolas returns to visit with his own dwarf, Gimli, memories return that Tauriel has long been trying to deal with. Collab with smileyfacebabe, please go read her half, it won't be as good without it!


_**Hello loyal subjects! If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that smileyfacebabe and I have sometime written each other things. And now we are writing a thing **together._

_**Sort of. She will write one side, and I will write the other, and hopefully they will match up and be awesome bc I think it's awesome and I haven't even written it yet.**_

_**Disclaimer: Despite lifelong desires to be, I am not Tolkien, nor will I ever be. His perfect characters are not mine, but I reserve the right to write them to the best of my ability, okay?**_

_She is far away. _

_She is far, far away from me._

_She walks in starlight in another world._

These words ring through her ears on this day, every year since his passing. One hundred years is but a breath to an elf, but without him time drags her along, minutes passing like syrup gone sour.

_Do you think she could have loved me?_

He isn't buried here. A son of Durin's line could never have rested in elven lands.

She is ambushed by huge, wracking sobs, the kind which are so powerful they make no noise, but rip her breath away and wrap her ribcage in iron.

It takes her a long time to get herself under control once more. She has had practice, and is better than she once was.

Brushing her fingers over the stone of his memorial, she whispers in his tongue, the rough words caressing her tongue like an old lover.

"Ezbad Khuhaj, isimun kunzek guhuh. Kheluz manan U zinlaz, Dayamu khuzan Ai menu, menu ziramu gamildul." Standing, she turns over his rune stone, pressing her thumb against the runes, and sighs at the memory of him throwing and catching it in his jail cell, all those long years ago.

She didn't even get to spend a year with him.

They barely got a week.

Turning, she wanders without direction, finding herself in the gardens, stepping between hedges and losing herself among the greenery. She spots kingsfoil. _Athelas_.

The bittersweet memory of the herb and the Lakeman's house steals her breath and she walks swiftly away, sweeping her hair over shoulders.

The feel of her braids over her fingertips bring a memory unbidden to her mind.

"_How do you feel?" She checks the wound again, noticing he no longer winces so violently when she brushes it with her fingers._

"_Much better, thank you, my lady."_

"_Tauriel." She shocks herself, inviting him to call her by her given name. He smiles up at her from the bed, and taps his fingers against hers. _

"_Tauriel." He repeats. "Then you must call me Kili." She blushes faintly, and he smiles again, one hand going up self consciously to smooth his hair._

_Then he feels the state of his braids. They are tangled, matted with blood, and in a peculiar state of disarray._

"_By Durin's beard!" He exclaimed. Quickly, he goes to unravel them, but is still too weak, and cannot move his fingers in any way other than clumsily,._

_Impulsively, she starts to unbraid them, her nimble fingers smoothing and untangling knots as she goes._

"_Would you like me to rebraid them for you?" She asks quietly. He nods jerkily._

_They sit in companionable silence for a while, as she smooths out knots, and teases each braid into shape. Under, over, under, over. It is relaxing, and helps both of them to calm some._

_Fastening them, she clears her throat from where the gentle rhythm of her plaiting has lulled him almost to sleep._

"_I am finished." Tentatively, he sleepily reaches up to run his fingers over the delicate braids she has woven into his hair. "Would you like a mirror?"_

"_Please." She fetches the mirror, miraculously unshattered, and positions it in front of him, angling it slightly so he can see the braids._

"_They look like yours." He says. She freezes, about to apologise, when he speaks. "I like it."_

"_I am glad." She manages._

_That was the first time he kissed her._

Her careless steps have taken her back to the main chambers of her realm, and she climbs the path with no real knowledge of where she is, or where she is going. She only places one foot in front of the other, with no thoughts but _him_ in her head.

"Tauriel." She turns to see Legolas with a ginger haired dwarf, plaited beard tucked neatly into his belt, and crinkles by his eyes indicative of merriment. "Where have you been, Tauriel?"

"Walking among the trees, visiting stones." She replies simply. Legolas's brow furrows minutely, and if she didn't know him so well she never would have known his confusion. She knows he doesn't remember, for when they were younger a dwarf would never have held his attention for so long. Of course, now it is different, he has his own dwarf, a friend, a companion to travel and laugh with. She pulls him from his thoughts, desiring a distraction from her grief.

"Won't you introduce me, prince?" She sets her gaze upon the dwarf. She does not know him, but he is familiar, in the way of someone met long ago, and barely met even then. He turns his face up and smiles, the merest hint of recognition and sorrowful respect in those young, merry eyes. Legolas grimaces, tensing as though he is preparing for battle, straightening to his full height and shaking his hair from his face.

"This is Gimli, son of Gloin. Gloin, son of Groin was a member of..."

She interrupts, head full of dwarves with bright beards, beautifully braided despite their hardships through the months, and a glorious smile directed at her a century ago, one which she had returned in kind.

"Thorin Oakenshield's company." Legolas's eyes track her expressions sharply. She draws in a slow breath, inclining her head, noting mentally that he nearly reaches her friend's waist, even as he bows gracefully. Legolas seems to brush off a memory of some kind, returning to his introduction.

"Gimli, this is Tauriel, captain of the Guard."

"Captain of the Guard. So it is you I have to blame for the lack of spiders to kill." The dwarf chuckles good naturedly. She returns the humour to the best of her ability, a tiny smile gracing her lips, though she knows it does not reach her eyes. Legolas's hand twitches where it lays against his thigh.

"Yes. Not long after your father passed through these woods I set about to clear their filth from our trees. Now that your fellowship has destroyed the Ring the spiders have lost their hold. One has not dared to cross into our borders for many seasons."

"And what about outside of ye borders?" The dwarf is obviously bloodthirsty, as so many dwarves are. Not her dwarf though, he was alight with innocent curiosity and wonder, nothing at all like his gruff, proud uncle, and yet so similar. She could have spent eternity learning him.

"You would have to ask the Northern Guard about the lands beyond our borders." Tauriel says, watching her friend blink at her. A subtle sign of shock, but for him this was akin to shouting his confusion from the tallest tree in the forest for all of Middle Earth to hear."For I know not where the spiders are past the edge of the forest. The forest is my only concern." She is lying, and she knows Legolas knows this, but she simply doesn't have the passion any more. She doesn't have the fight. Smaug, the foul worm, took that, when she thought he took her prince. The battle of five armies took that, when it took him again.

"Tauriel." He has switched to elvish, and set a calming hand on his dwarf friend's shoulder. "The lands outside our borders have been your concern and curiosity for many years. What now has changed?"

She stares at him, not seeing his face, watching her memories of her fallen love, the memory of seeing his cold, still body, hands never again moving rapidly to punctuate as he explained something, eyes never again lighting up with new knowledge, or curiosity, or love.

"He is tall, for a dwarf at least." Her voice is hoarse, and Legolas's eyes pierce her, full of the dawning implicit knowledge of her words. Her accent shifts, softly, so softly, echoing the gravel and rawness of the earth, the dwarven tongue attempting to leap out of her mouth. The years she spent learning to speak it rush back, and she recalls when she lacked the ability to discard her own accent, lacked the ability to spit the words out with the passion and fire of a dwarf.

She meets his eyes, unable to mask what she feels, her heart heavy with sorrow in her breast, her eyes filling with loss.

_The dwarf princes lie adorned with flowers, dressed in white, their wounds stitched, and tanned skin free of blood. Their uncle lies beside Fili, but she pays no heed to either, sinking down to kneel clumsily at the other twin's side. She passes her fingers over his face, pallid under the colour that only comes from working outside, and a tear splashes on his cheek._

Breathing deeply, she wipes her face clean of any emotion, and runs a finger over the runes of the stone she didn't realise she still held. She has been gripping it so hard the runes have forced their indent into her palm, and she furrows her brow at the patterning. The prince tracks the movement, his eyes flashing.

"_I want you to take it." He folds the oval promise stone into her hand, closing her fingers over it. It is warm with heat from his skin and she rolls it against her fingers._

"_I cannot take this." She protests, giving it back. "Your mother gave you this stone." _

_She is kneeling before him, bow slung across her shoulders, in the Lakeman's house. His leg is not yet healed fully, but it will hold for the battle, if he is careful._

"_It is mine, and I can gift it to whom I wish, Tauriel." A hot thrill runs deep within her as he says her name. "This is a promise to you, that we will be together, whether it be in this life, or one after this."_

_He kisses her fiercely._

_She takes the stone._

The memory comes unbidden and she flinches.

Turning her attention back to the men before her, she turns the stone over in her hand and speaks.

"It has been a pleasure meeting you, Gimli, son of Gloin, friend of Legolas. I wish there were spiders left, if only so that I could see if the tales I've heard about your skill in battle are true."

Gimli gives her a heavy smile, sensing her sombre mood.

"Aye, same for you. My father tells me you fought amongst those who were there at the Battle of Five Armies."

She nods jerkily, and the line between Legolas's eyes deepens a little. He has not yet realised, but she knows it will not take him long to find the pieces of the puzzle and track her down.

"I must take my leave." She mumbles in elvish, and slips away like shadows in the morning sun.

Stopping a distance away, how far she knows not, she presses her back to the wall, and slides down until she is curled at the base of it. Pressing the stone to her lips, a single tear soaks into the collar of her tunic, staining it a single shade darker.

_She saved his life out of love, and he fell to a lowly orc, her noble prince, out of love for the people of Middle Earth, to save them from a fate worse than death._

"Kili." She whispers, voice barely audible, rune stone blocking her words from unwelcome ears. "We will walk on starlight together once more."

_**Guess who made herself cry when she wrote this. *Clears throat***_

_**Translations are as follows.**_

_**Ezbad Khuhaj, isimun kunzek guhuh. Kheluz manan U zinlaz, Dayamu khuzan Ai menu, menu ziramu gamildul- Lord warrior, everlasting stone forest. Strong light of stars, blessings of the ancestors be upon you, you forge with the ancients.**_


End file.
